Professor Leonard Swidler

Academic Director
dialogue@temple.edu

Prof. Leonard Swidler is Founder and President of the Dialogue Institute, as well as Founding Editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. He is Professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue in the Religion Department of Temple University, where he has taught since 1966. At Temple, and as a visiting professor at universities around the world – including Graz, Austria; Tübingen, Germany; Fudan University, Shanghai; and the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur – Prof. Swidler has mentored a generation of U.S. and international scholars in the work of interreligious dialogue. Prof. Swidler has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the University of Tübingen, and received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin; he also holds honorary doctorates from St. Norbert’s College and LaSalle University. Prof. Swidler has published more than 180 articles and 70 books.

Andi Laudisio

Program Director
afl@dialgoueinstitute.org

Andi is the Administrative and Development Coordinator for the Dialogue Institute and currently a PhD student in the Religion Department at Temple University. Her dissertation topic is on the 2005 Iraqi Constitution and its resulting sectarian violence. She is working to identify how a Democratic intervention transformed the religious landscape of a primarily Islamic nation and if such an influence has the possibility to lead to religious pluralism within Iraq despite its current sectarian divide.  Andi earned her BA in Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics at SUNY University at Buffalo. She attended Arizona State University for her MA in Religious Studies with a focus on the Bremer Period of Iraq.